


Warmth in Himring

by SpaceWall



Series: Maedhros Remade [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon Era, Established Relationship, First Age, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Romance, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 18:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15125477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall
Summary: Fingon surprises his longtime partner and oldest friend with a visit. Maedhros has a surprise for him in return.Prequel to Marred but Remade, but can be read as stand alone. This is the fluffiest damn First Age fic you’ll ever read.





	Warmth in Himring

**Author's Note:**

> The only thing you really need to know if you didn’t read Marred But Remade is that Fingon and Maedhros got together a few years after Thangorodrim, but were in love for a long time before that.

Himring’s Captain of the Guard was a man in his late forties called Aegon who Fingon had taught the basics of swordplay at the age of sixteen, when he had been nervous, thin, uncommonly short, and petrified that people would judge him for his inability to even hold a sword steady. In essence, save for the uncommon shortness, he had been a perfectly accurate representation of the state of the Lord of Himring in the same year. Now, Maedhros was only slightly more nervous than was probably appropriate for someone in his position, and the Captain of Guard was only slightly shorter than was probably average for someone in his. 

“Your highness,” he said, bowing to Fingon with half a smile. 

“Aegon, it is a pleasure. How are your children? Still obsessed with horses?”

“Only one, my lord. It proved that only the daughter truly cared for horses. My son was more interested in the stable boy. I have suggested Rhawen find some other trade, but neither she nor my lord will have it. He is offering to convince Lord Maglor to take her on in the gap for a summer or two, see how she likes riding with experts.”

It was only here, in Himring, where you could have such a conversation with a man. More polite probing revealed that the son and the stable boy were engaged to be married, while the daughter was still invested in renouncing all romance from any potential partners on the basis that they interfered with her passion for horses. Elsewhere, traditional mannish norms around marriage and gender reigned strong. Fingon often wondered whether it was Maedhros’s investment in the matter that prompted the change, or the investment of the men in Maedhros. Likely, it was both. He cared about this, and they cared about him, and thus things changed. Fingon cultivated some friendships of his own back home, but here, the children of these men who had themselves grown up in Himring all called Maedhros ‘uncle’, or, for the more cheeky and daring among them, either ‘grandfather’ or ‘dad’. It was precisely the sort of environment that everyone, except Fingon and Maedhros’s brothers, would have been surprised to see spring up around him. 

Allowing Aegon to return to his post, Fingon turned his horse over to the future son-in-law, and then went in search of Maedhros. He was standing in his war room, alone, overlooking the best map of Angband they had. His hair, already worn short for easy maintenance, was unbraided but not tangled. Fingon would braid it before he left. Maedhros liked wearing braids, but he found taking them out easier than putting them in, given that it only required one hand. 

“Discovering new and exciting tactics to employ against Morgoth, I hope?” Fingon said, by way of greeting, and then, when Maedhros turned around in shock, kissed him full on the mouth. 

He was used, by now, to the feeling of Maedhros’s lips on his, to the way in which he tangled his hand in Fingon’s hair, and to the placement of every scar on Maedhros’s skin when Fingon yanked open his tunic to run his hands across Maedhros’s chest. 

Maedhros pulled away for a second. Fingon assumed he was going to say either ‘not now’ or ‘not here’. Instead, what Maedhros said, was, “marry me.”

Fingon, thinking for a second he had misheard, simply said, “what?”

Maedhros repeated his statement, this time as a question instead of a command, which was only marginally less perplexing. 

“Uh, yes?” Fingon managed, and then was interrupted for quite some time when Maedhros kissed him again. “I was not under the impression you were particularly interested in marrying me.”

Maedhros looked at him like he was an idiot. “Oh, my apologies. I assumed asking you to marry me and courting you for decades was declaration enough.”

Fingon kissed him again to shut him up. “Apology accepted.”

They briefly considered allowing a few of Maedhros’s men to watch them swear the oaths, but decided against it. The odds that all of Himring wouldn’t know by morning under those conditions would be non-existent, and Maglor would probably be knocking at their door by mid-day. Despite the tolerant nature of Maedhros’s people, secrecy remained paramount. Fingon’s father could not know. He had enough quarrels with Fëanor’s sons as it was. Deflowering his heir didn’t need to be added to the list. 

“Do you want us to swear to Eru, to the Valar or simply to each other?” Fingon asked, gently. They had moved up to one of the taller towers on Himring. The tallest with a window looking away from Angband, to be specific. It was afternoon, and the sun shone off of snow and stone, down into the bright blues and greens of the river valley far below. 

Maedhros looked at him like he was stupid, again. “Elves always swear marriage oaths in the name of Eru, Fingon. I do intend to marry you, not merely take you as some sort of mistress.”

As though it had been any way evident that Maedhros would be willing to swear an oath ever again, what with the way his father’s oath chewed at him, in all the worst and darkest moments. As though Fingon would not have been satisfied to spend the rest of his life as Maedhros’s mistress. 

“What shall we swear then? And what shall we exchange? We may not have rings, but I should like to give you some token of my affections.”

Maedhros looked oddly guilty, and reached into his pocket to pull out two thin gold bands. One with an amethyst and two tiny black diamonds, the other with simply a ruby. They clearly weren’t of a set, but of course, Maedhros asking for two rings in a set would have been an immediate tip off. One, Fingon guessed, was of dwarvish make, ordered through Caranthir or from Maedhros’s own contacts among Aulë’s people. The other was probably of elvish make. Curufin or Celebrimbor. Likely the latter, since he was more trusting than his father and less likely to ask questions. If he had to guess, he would say the amethyst was Celebrimbor’s work, if only for the grace of the design. But then, dwarven work could be graceful too. 

“It will not be much of a gift if I offer you your own ring,” Fingon quipped, his throat feeling oddly tight. 

“If I were to die for you tomorrow, and left you all the fortune I possess, I would still owe you a debt I could never repay.”

Fingon pulled Maedhros down to kiss him again. “You owe me nothing, you understand? Nothing. I have done nothing for you that I did not do out of selfishness, for it has surely been to my benefit to have you here with me. There is nothing else in all of Arda that I want more.”

“Just pick a ring, would you?” Maedhros muttered. Fingon fancied that he was blushing. 

“I prefer the ruby, for myself. Besides, it is not the right shade of red for your hair.” This was patently untrue. Rubies always looked excellent with Maedhros’s hair, but Fingon rather fancied having the ring that reminded him of Maedhros for himself.

Maedhros handed Fingon the amethyst ring, so they could make the exchange. “May I swear my oath first? And would you copy my wording, if I asked you to?”

“Yes, to both. Is there anything else you want before we begin? No parents, obviously, and we have been courting for well over a year. I have a coronet somewhere in my bag, for formality’s sake, if you would rather I be appropriately dressed.”

Maedhros shook his head. “To paraphrase your own words, ‘there is nothing else in Arda I want’. This is more already that I had ever dreamed of.”

Fingon placed the ring in his left hand, so he could entwine his right with Maedhros’s. “Shall we?”

Maedhros looked down for a moment, composing his words. “I, Nelyafinwë Maitimo Russandol, called Maedhros, son of Curufinwë Fëanáro Finwion and son of Nerdanel Mahtaniel, Lord of Himring, do swear, in the name of Eru Illuvatar, that I will love this elf before me as long as I am able, and that I do wish to love him until Arda Remade. I swear that I shall listen to his council, respect his wishes, and trust his judgement. I swear to him my sword, as long as I may in good conscience wield it, my knowledge, as long as I may trust what it contains, and my heart, as long as I am able. Eru, hear that he has already saved my hröa and my fëa, hear that he has been patient with me, even when it has been nearly impossible. Hear that he loves me even when I feel unloveable, and tells me that I am not. Hear that I love him, with everything that remains of me, and that I intend to love him with everything I have yet to become.”

Fingon echoed the oaths section word for word, save that he inserted his own name, parentage and titles where Maedhros’s were. Then, when he reached the ‘hear that’ section, he paused. He did not have Maedhros’s gift for easy words, and so it took him almost a minute to compose them fully. Maedhros waited patiently, grey eyes staring entranced into Fingon’s own. 

“Eru, hear that I have loved him since I was a boy. Hear that he is the strongest, most loving person I know. Hear that he is faithful, to his family, to his people, and to me. Hear that my love for him has only grown, these past decades, and I expect it to only grow into the future, when I may call this miracle ‘husband’.”

They were not nearly so good as Maedhros’s words, but that did not seem to matter. Maedhros surged in to kiss him, beautiful in his passion. It was the eyes where Fingon was most drawn, which had been innocent in Maitimo’s face and were wise in Maedhros’s. Now, they sparkled with tears as Maedhros placed Fingon’s ring upon his finger. He struggled to hold his hand steady while Fingon did the same. Fingon was crying too, sniffling like a child. Maedhros, not missing a beat, pulled away his hand to retrieve a handkerchief and pass it to Fingon. 

“Sorry,” Fingon mumbled. “I had not meant to cry. Does it bring you peace to know that they are happy tears?”

Maedhros pulled another handkerchief from somewhere and dabbed at his own eyes. “Mine are not, at least, not only.”

“Mine are not only either.” He reached up to place a hand on Maedhros’s face, wiping away a stray tear with his thumb. “What sorrows hold your heart today?”

“I am thinking of my mother,” Maedhros confessed. He turned away from Fingon to look out over the hills and valleys. Fingon wrapped an arm around his waist. 

“She loved you, you know? Her sons were her world, and you were her firstborn. Her Maitimo.” 

Maedhros bowed his head. “I know. That is the root of my sorrows. I miss her. I can temper my wishes that the rest of my family were here with thoughts of their reactions. My father’s fury, Maglor’s laughter, grandfather’s bewilderment. But I truly believe that my mother would have supported us through every minute of this. I believe that she would have grieved with me over our lost chance at happiness, and rejoiced with me when I found my affections returned.”

“She would have,” Fingon said, knowing full well what Maedhros was leaving unsaid. That of all their four parents, only Fingon’s father could have been here, and his distaste for Maedhros, for Maedhros’s father, was great enough that they could not allow him to be. It broke Fingon’s heart too. 

They held each other in silence for a moment, and felt as the connection between them strengthened into that of marriage. 

“It is almost like music, in my mind,” Fingon whispered, as though confiding some great secret. 

“I feel it more like a string, tying us together.”

It was well known that people experienced the marriage bond in many different ways, largely depending on the connection of their own fëa to Arda itself. 

Hello. Fingon thought, at Maedhros, pleased by the ease of the communication. 

Maedhros sent him a detailed image of the two of them, not yet two centuries old, at a party in Tirion. For a second, Fingon could taste the wine, smell spices on the breeze, and hear music as real as if Maglor was standing behind him aggressively plucking at a harp. It was beautiful. 

Oh, Fingon thought, we are going to have fun with this. 

In his mind and aloud, Maedhros laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> And then everybody died because the First Age sucked. At least they got to be happy for a while though.


End file.
